Austin’s Art Gallery
By Austin P. Torney
Copyright 2012 Austin P. Torney
Smashwords Edition
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About the Author
Austin began writing for real around the age of forty, a respite from working as an Information Engineer in the field of Computer Science, doing programming, an art, as it turned out. He calls himself a humanist, and is one who enjoys the liberal arts, utilizing science, for it pervades every discipline. He is currently retired and lives in the mountains of Poughquag, NY, near the Appalachian Trail. He enjoys tennis, writing, fun, humor, thinking, sleeping, poetry, music, dining, travel, romance, reading, swimming, and life.
Connect with me online
email: austintorn@aol.com
Movies
See my YouTube Channel, ‘austintorn’.
There are playlists there.
Books by Austin P. Torney
Astronomical Wonders: Illustrated stories, poems and pictures of the universe, the sun, the moon, the stars and the planets.
Austin’s Art: Best art, mostly from the other books.
Austin’s Tennis Tips: Some humorous; tennis play, and stories. Color.
Brain Waves Illustrated: Astounding revelations of the mysteries of the mind and the universe. What is Consciousness and Awareness? Where did the Universe come from? What makes the mind operate as it does? What is Meditation? What is our Destiny? How do the senses work?
Butterflies At the Edge of Forever: Toe Questors from www.toequest.com discover the Secrets of the Universe, as well as the humorously dangerous implications that follow their possession of the Holy Grail of the genuine Theory of Everything. With the world’s future hanging in the balance, they sharpen their wits and skills through the teachings of the learnéd Grand Masters. Extraordinary mixed media color photo composites of tropical and otherworldly scenes beyond compare. Many poems as well. Fun science, too. Much original humor. There is no greater quest than to know whence we came and what we are. Humorous but meaningful.
Elfin Legends: A journey through the otherworld.
Epic Thoughts: The Best Of: The deepest and most profound thoughts.
Illuminations: The End, the Beginning, and All that Lies Between.
Illustrated Sayings: Pearls of Wisdom.
Flora Symbolica Illustrated: The Lore and Legends of the Flowers. Color-illustrated stanzas of the myths, legends, and facts of the flowers.
Glorious Revelations: The complete scientific series of exploits.
Illuminated Revelations: Color-illustrated glorious and romantic scientific exploits.
Illustrated Take-Offs And Jokes: Humorous illustrations, many of which I made, with the remainder discovered on the internet, mainly those that are lists of things. Much original humor.
Last Knight’s Almanac: The Adventures Following King Arthur’s Demise Last Knight’s Almanac celebrates life, love, and adventure, in the years following the death of King Arthur. It also serves as a backdrop on which I can draw literary portraits of many of man’s favorite things, such as nature, astronomy, emotion, poetry, travel, history, fantasy, art, and so on. Arthurian legend is the main thread of the story and is also one of my favorite things, so this is important, too. What really happened in the Dark Ages? And yes, it’s true, but only if you wish to believe it, that I unearthed these Chronicles from an iron box that was buried 1400 years ago under the Abbey of Glastonbury.
Living Freely: Life on the cheap and nearly free in a warm climate.
Magical Moments Series: Magical scenes composited as they really could be on a perfect day.
Magical Revelations Series: Magical revelations of nature on a perfect day. Part of a series. It wasn’t easy getting birds to pose for me and waiting for a glorious sunset or sunrise, so I used Photoshop to create realities that could be.
Nostalgic Notions Illustrated: The Good Old Days: Illustrated nostalgic art with a paragraph below each. Relive the golden olden days for inspiration and remembrance.
Office Life: The Glad, The Sad, And The Ugly. Life at work-from my observations at IBM and elsewhere.
Reality Recomposed: Magical scenes that one might find on the perfect day at the right time.
Scientific Exploits: The Glorious, the Humorous, and the Serious: The “dry” formulas from science books are depended on for a large portion of our existence, and while we may stand in awe at their deeper meaning and even enjoy some lab experiments, they don’t always reveal their full and complete history; however, the stories behind many scientific discoveries are usually insightful, amazing and sometimes even hilarious. Being that we are human, we can be doggedly eccentric in some of our earthly quests, and perhaps the genius of some scientists begets even more incredulous undertakings. (Wait until we look into the strangeness of Isaac Newton.)
Scientific Implications: Fantasy, Fancy, and Reality: Even more science exploits.
Scientific Explanations: And more science exploits.
Scientific Revelations: More science exploits.
Short Takes: The Stories Of Austin P. Torney: Original Comedy/Jokes, Glorious Nostalgia, Astounding Science, Thought provoking Satire/Take-offs, Gripping Short Stories, Deep Mystical musings, Self-Help, plus, the Theory of Everything deeply explored.
The Anti-Word: The Absurdity Of Religious Belief: The absurdity of religious beliefs is pointed out directly, as it must be, but there is also grace, humor, insight, style and the urge to fully live, unfettered by superstition. Long ago, people were thrown out of the tribe for not believing in the moon god, but that god is long gone, along with the gods of Mt. Olympus and others who had to be relocated so far away as to become invisible. Is our present day God any more real? Is He a leader? Is He a good role model. Should we follow his ways? Was God made in Man’s image? Is it all just a myth? What do other insights have to offer? Lavishly illustrated. (Some overlap with ‘The Guide to the All-Embracing realm of the Ultimate’)
The Art of Love: Sayings (the art of) and illustrations (the art) of love.
Telling Stories: Original, illustrated Comedy/Jokes, Nostalgia, Astounding Science, Thought provoking Satire/Take-offs, Gripping Short Stories, Mystical musings, Self-Help, and even a deep science dialog with a cricket.
The Illustrated Rubaiyat Of Austin P. Torney: The Embrace Of The Human Condition: An extension of Omar Khayyam’s Rubayiat into modern times, illustrated on every other page. The Rubàiyàt stuck a chord in me which was already resonating to Omar’s frequency, so, I wrote my own. Somehow, inexplicably, the verses came to me as I lived through all the experiences described therein, for I dared not write of any philosophies which had not been tried and proven. My quatrains, like Omar’s, aim into the heart of life’s dilemmas, offering simple common sense solutions. In this hectic, complicated world of ours we often forget that it is the simple things in life that are still the most enjoyable and inexpensive-for, everyone dies, but not everyone lives. The spirit of Omar’s Persia-fume has reached me, across the centuries, as he had hoped it might, and has overtaken me unawares, inspiring me to live and write, in that order.
The Live Sea Scrolls Glorious color-illustrated scrolls of sayings to inspire living and to celebrate the human condition.
The Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam: Translated by Edward FitzGerald and Illustrated by Austin P. Torney: 114 quatrains are presented via a merge of the first four editions of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The 80+ illustrations, all in color, are a mixture of ancient and modern styles, ranging from Austin’s own nature compositions to his enhancement of engravings and drawings obtained from very old books. This publication celebrates the nearly two hundred years since Edward FitzGerald was born.
The Poems Of Austin P. Torney: Flora Symbolica: An epic poem on the lore and legends of the flowers as taken by Eve from the Garden of Eden. Color Symbols: Lore and Legends of the colors. Elfin Legends: Lore. The Rubayiat of Austin P. Torney: Extension of the Rubayiat into modern times. Brain Waves: The mysteries of the mind and the secrets of the universe. Misc. Poems: Science poems; Many more short poems.
The Rubaiyat Of Austin P. Torney: The Embrace Of The Human Condition: An extension of Omar Khayyam’s Rubayiat into modern times. The Rubàiyàt stuck a chord in me which was already resonating to Omar’s frequency, so, I wrote my own. Text. 570 quatrains.
The Secrets Of The Universe: Wherefrom, Whereto, And What To Do: From Possibility, as in the quantum realm, but deeper still, came our account, via the near-nothing of Potential, where the buck stops, for it is neither substance nor nothing. How does everything work? What are the secrets of the universe and what do they tell us? To what shall we amount inside our parentheses of eternity? To know where we’re going, we need to know where we’ve been, and what we’re made of. Celebrate your good fortune! This is the large format deluxe edition, with all text illuminated by color plates.
The Illustrated Triumph of Life, Love, and Being: An Exploration of the Joys of the Human Condition through the Life of a Loving Couple Engaged in the Ultimate Relationship Across the Centuries and into the Future. Escaping from a monastery-abbey that engulfed itself in the flames of ignorance, such as the one in in the book ‘The Name of the Rose’, they, our ever returning couple, salvage a mysterious book of quatrains that guides them through the joys and follies of the human condition as they live out its words, for the proof of all writing is to live it. So close in thought that they need not even be named at first, our couple takes a picaresque journey through the first part of the book to solve the difficulties of life as they are encountered in their travels through the forested countryside. Alive and positive, it makes you want to run right out and live. Includes the Book of Quatrains and the Journal. Many illustrations. Magical and Mystical.
The Guide to the All-Embracing Realm of the Ultimate:
Is it that with grace, humor and style that we will describe all the realms of life, as well as answer the ultimate questions, some via seriously comedic adventures? We will it.
Will good and evil clash, with a triumphant success? Indeed, and in the deeds of grand stimulation and logic.
Is the cause of the universe itself causeless? Yes, and we will learn why it is uncaused, just be-cause.
Did the laws of the universe come from Nothing? Just about, but there is some further ado about this near ‘nothing’.
Does everything amount to a total Nothing except for the quantum fluctuations of uncertainty? Certainly.
Will we disprove the Supernatural? Naturally.
Will we hear tales of DIA events ‘that never happened’? Yes, but please keep them under your hat.
Is it that we are but a shimmering glitter in the eye of eternity, a small parentheses enclosing a dust mote of a rare and lucky event of little significance on the faltering edge of forever… or, that, as our luck has never failed, our joy and innocence will ever prevail? Who the heck knows!
What does the sum total of the information content of Everything add up to? Nothing. Nil. Null. Not a thing.
Will the Earth be destroyed in this story? Yes, but only temporarily and only a few times.
Are these your poems and art compositions? Yes. I, Why? Note that this is not even the shortest poem.
Did you read ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?’ No, I hadn’t, amazingly, but when someone told me that my book was like that, I quickly read the first ‘Hitchhiker’ book of the series. We don’t really go to many other planets in this book, but there is much earthly imagination and excitement and comedy within.
Do we really learn Everything here, such as what is the origin of the universe and also the explanation of that which produced it. Yes. Really? Yes, for sure.
What is www.ToeQuest.com? It’s a web site where people discuss Everything. It’s fun; come on over and post.
Who are your favorite authors? Victor Stenger, Lee Child, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Shermer, Jonah Lehrer, Bill Bryson, Omar Khayyam, Percy Shelley, Dan Brown, Robert Ardley, David Darling, Carl Sagan, Nelson DeMille and all the CIA/detective writers.
The unSupernatural section is long. Yes, and although it’s quite funny, too, these considerations actually helped lead us to the Super Theory of Everything, so… Thank God!
Does the book get more serious as it goes along? Yes, seriously, for I am first showing the exhilaration of being alive.
You cite some of the ideas of great thinkers. Yes, and I hope that this spurs my readers to go out and buy their books to get the whole story.
The Good Book of the Humanist Bible: The UnWrit Book of Books Of the Unholy Scriptures And the UnVarnished Gospel Truth of Reality: The title says it all.
The Illustrated Poems Of Austin P. Torney: Illustrated poems on everything: life, nature, the universe and science.
The MPs’ Tales: Two Army MP leaders pursue a seemingly routine weapons theft case in Hawaii, but find there are larger forces at work. Their mysterious Colonel eventually initiates and guides them towards ultimate maneuverings, in a drug case, and even to the underpinnings of reality itself.
The Theory of Everything: All the Way Up: Everything explained, its source, its Why and How, and then the Where, What, Then and When, leading on up to the Who of being, plus many discussions, and more.
The Universal Day: A journey through the hours, the life, the seasons, and the ages.
Wick and the Cricket: An enchanting tale and discussion of cosmology, especially concerning our freedom to act. Wick began this inspiring tale on ToeQuest, the likes of which may never be seen again, for it was the rarest of happenings unplanned. Crick, Kit, Carmel, and LabelWench soon joined in. It takes place “somewhere/sometime”, in the English countryside. It begins as Wick frees a cricket from his bamboo cage.